As a result of their ever-growing functionalities, smart terminal devices, such as smart phones, tablets, personal computers, wearable devices, etc., are becoming more and more commonplace in people's everyday life. In addition to the conventional services of telephonic communication, text messaging and web browsing, smart terminal devices are further equipped to augment the on-device functionalities by allowing the users to download and thereby access applications (hereinafter, apps) provided from third party service providers. However, the enhanced convenience of mobile apps nevertheless gives rise to heightened concerns of user data security.
For example, oftentimes, users input, exchange and store sensitive and/or confidential information on the device by virtue of both utilizing the conventional functionalities and interacting with third party apps. When a user installs a mobile payment app on a smart terminal device, the user usually stays logged in the mobile payment app or automatically logs in upon the activation of the mobile payment app. When the user installs a social media app on the smart terminal device, likewise the user remains logged in or automatically logs in upon the activation of the social media app. Therefore, all the information and content stored on the device is accessible as long as the smart terminal device is accessible. As such, the loss or unauthorized access to the personal and financial information stored on a device is of greater security concerns.
Presently, the user data security concern is addressed by configuring security setting for terminal devices. For example, a user can set up security settings on a terminal device to include blacklists to block incoming phone calls, automatically delete incoming marketing text messages, block connecting to malicious websites and the like as measurements to safeguard the data security and privacy on the terminal device.
However, the configuration of the above-described security setting is performed based on a user's own level of security concerns. Not only the procedures impose a high level of computer or device literacy upon the users, but also the security settings configured tend to be rigidly specified for a particular device, lacking in degrees of flexibility in providing mobile security.